


Double Double Toil and Trouble

by Meddalarksen



Series: 30 AU Challenge - Natasha [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, F/F, Hufflepuff!Maria, Slytherin!Natasha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 16:21:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11901513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meddalarksen/pseuds/Meddalarksen
Summary: Maria and Natasha met on the Hogwarts Express in first year when Maria asked if anyone was sitting in the compartment and Natasha responded with a shrug and a silent offer of licorice wands.  Now in third year they're each realizing that maybe it's a little more than that.





	Double Double Toil and Trouble

Natasha twirled her wand between her fingers, stretched out on her back under a tree not far from the lakeshore.  Her eyes were half closed as she watched the sun playing through the leaves.  Maria was sitting with her back against the trunk of the tree, reading out loud from their transfiguration textbook and occasionally poking Natasha with her foot to make sure the red-head was listening.

Natasha caught Maria’s ankle the next time she did it, hand closing over the yellow wool of Maria’s sock, “Don’t you think the socks are overkill?”

“The first years still think I’m a Gryffindor when they meet me,” Maria answered.  “Now come on, you’re supposed to be answering what it takes to become an Animagus.”

“Too many steps,” Natasha answered promptly, sitting up but not letting go of Maria’s ankle as she stowed her wand in her sleeve.  “Not worth it.”

“It’s worth it to pass your class.  We’ve got an essay on this, remember?” Maria said, though she closed the book even as she said that.

Natasha slid closer, a small smile on her lips, “It’s not due for another three days.”

Maria pushed Natasha away with a small laugh, “Where’s that ambition your house is known for?”

“Not focused on an essay we’ll ace,” Natasha said before getting to her feet and holding out a hand to Maria.  “I found a new tunnel.”

“When?”

“Last night,” Natasha said, as though she hadn’t just admitted that she had to have been out well after curfew in that case.

“Where’s it go?”  Maria took Natasha’s hand and let herself be pulled to her feet.

“I don’t know yet.  I thought we’d find out.”

“Natasha Romanov not finding out everything she can before going in? Is the world ending?” Maria asked with a grin.

“Maria Hill complaining about not finding things out second-hand? It must be,” Natasha shot back as she pulled Maria back toward the school with her, their books in bags on their shoulders.

Maria laughed, curling her hand more firmly in Natasha’s and pretending it didn’t make the tips of her ears pink.  They detoured long enough to drop their books in Maria’s dorm, Natasha’s green scarf earning a few wary looks from the first years, before they were off again.

They had explored as much of the main castle that they could get away with their first two years at Hogwarts, and while there were still parts left untouched they had decided to pursue secret passages in third year, fourth if they found enough hints to keep going.  Natasha had confided that she was hoping to find ones that no one had seen in centuries.  Maria had pointed out that probably they would suffocate in those since they probably were sealed and that’s why no one had been in them.

That had earned a careless shrug and Natasha adding marks in the margins of the notes they already had of what they’d found.

Maria groaned as they turned a corner and Natasha approached a statue of a nymph, “Natasha, Sir Cadogan lives down this hall.”

“He’s off fighting the dragon in the painting down by the charms classroom, we passed them on our way up,” Natasha said, dragging Maria along with her to the nymph statue and then past it to a tapestry of what looked like hippogriffs.

She let go of Maria’s hand and pulled the tapestry aside slightly, “Hold this.”

Maria looked down the hall and then did as instructed, keeping an eye out for any professors while Natasha pressed a couple of the bricks and with a groan part of the wall slid inward. 

Natasha smiled and cast a lumos before stepping inside, “Coming?”

“Coming,” Maria said, dropping the tapestry back into place behind them and grinning, Natasha’s excitement of the unknown intoxicating.  They made their way through the dark passage, Maria reaching for Natasha’s hand and getting another smile in reply.

“Any guesses where this is going to come out?” Natasha asked, keeping one hand on the stone wall as they crept quietly through what had to be the outer wall of the castle.

“I’m going to say down near the wall closest to the greenhouses.  What do you think?”

“Groundskeeper’s hut,” Natasha replied promptly.

Maria frowned at that, “That’s a long way.  Why do you think that far?”

“Because if I was building secret passages, I’d want them to go a long way away so that I could get past anyone attacking my castle,” Natasha said with a shrug.

“We could both be wrong and we could end up in a dormitory,” Maria said.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Natasha said, turning to face Maria on a landing of the stairs they had been steadily descending.

Maria stopped so fast she almost ran into Natasha, “This castle has staircases that move.”

“Confusion tactics for attacking forces.”

“It was built as a _school_ not a fortress,” Maria said.

“It was built as both,” Natasha shot back before starting down the stairs again, her hand still clutching Maria’s.

They traveled like that for what a tempus charm indicated was much longer than Maria expected.  The stone walls eventually gave way to dirt and then roots began to be visible and they climbed a handful of steps.  Maria looked around as they came out into what was almost a twilight but it couldn’t be that late yet.

Natasha tightened her hand in Maria’s, speaking quietly as though she didn’t want to break the silence around them, “We’re in the Forest.”

Maria’s eyes widened, “And the school is—” She turned a half-circle before pointing to where she could see a gap through the trees and what looked like it might be sunlight on the lake, “There.”

Natasha hesitated, also looking around before she nodded and they moved quickly, and quietly in Natasha’s case, toward that light.  There was the sound of a branch breaking off to their left and by the time they reached the edge of the forest they were running full tilt.

They tripped over each other as they reached the warm sunlight and went down.  Maria rolled onto her back and tried to catch her breath only to realize the sounds she could hear Natasha making were _giggles_.  Maria huffed out a breath and found it catching on her own relieved laughter, “An escape tunnel, huh?”

“Well, it wasn’t the greenhouses,” Natasha said, trying for prim but failing when she started laughing again.

Maria propped herself up on an elbow and leaned over her friend, still laughing and then paused when she realized how close they were.  Natasha stopped laughing, but she was still smiling, her red hair spread out over the grass and she tipped her head slightly to one side as she watched Maria.

Maria hesitated and started to pull back, feeling color rising to her cheeks but there was a hand on the back of her neck and suddenly Natasha was leaning up and pulling her down all at once to press a quick kiss to her lips.  It wasn’t a very good kiss as far as kisses go, but for a first, tentative, try it wasn’t a bad kiss either.  Maria blinked, wide-eyed down at her and then smiled slowly, seeing the expression mirrored by Natasha. 

She was just leaning down again when there was a chime from her tempus charm.  Natasha laughed, “Damn dinner.”

Maria smiled, almost shyly at that, “Yeah.  Let’s…go?”

Natasha nodded, getting to her feet and holding her hand out to Maria, a challenge in her eyes.  Maria grinned and took Natasha’s hand, standing and they took off across the grounds toward the castle and their evening meals.  It wasn’t anything certain, but the light in Natasha’s eyes made something warm curl in Maria’s chest and make itself at home.


End file.
